[[ 18 ]] TENSILE STRENGTH

Relationships can be difficult.

Even among people who are truly devoted to loving one another, there are always the scars of past wounds, new insecurities, and an uncertain future. It doesn't matter what type of relationship it is, or who is in it -- we're human, and subject to faults of perspective regarding ourselves and others. Like guitar strings, we all have a certain range and 'tensile strength'.

Tensile strength measures the force required to pull something such as rope or a wire to the point where it breaks.

When caressed by comfortable and understanding hands, we make music. We create harmony. In many modern cultures, this is why we get married: we believe we have found someone who knows how to bring out the best in us.
But those same strings, plucked without tenderness or by unkind fingers - will only endure so much before they start to fray and break.

Here...   we have a dinner party. A group of old friends has come together to celebrate the engagement of a couple. Should be a good time, right? But all it takes is a a little discord... one angry strum to set them against one another, and the strands start to unravel. Even Good People in Love are vulnerable to harsh and critical analysis.
Take a look:

[[ Warning: Adult language and concepts. Be advised. ]]

Are they all liars? Was Scott wrong for speaking so directly - or is he acting out, due to his own bad experiences with trust? Perhaps some might sanction his behavior, stating that he is only being brutally honest. Ok, let's assume that he's just "keeping it real"... but -- at what cost? None of us could perform a guitar sonata perfectly on our first try! So why should we expect anyone to be flawless in handling marriage or parenthood or even growing older?

Here, we have a set of what appears to be bright, relatively happy and successful individuals. Yet its evident that each of them is damaged or broken in some way.
After all, Art imitates Life.
Harsh strumming will expose the ugliness in a guitar, much like it does with relationships. A negative chord, sustained and shared to all who will listen...now resonates.

Negativity reverberates like a bad note played during a concert. 

So what, then? What becomes of love -- when evidently, its so easily broken and betrayed? Why bother?

Perhaps because love *really* is like guitar strings. Even broken strings can be restrung. Even bad notes fade, especially when replaced with harmony.  Will it be perfect? No. But .... it never was.
All of life will be an imperfect melody. It is the Musician that one should seek to improve.

There are any number of motivations which can allow one to be a better musician, Love among the best of them. A passion for the instrument (your living heart), the method (the relationship) and melody (the joy of that bond)-- these grant us the opportunity to practice our skills. If you can allow forgiveness, replacing harsh tones with softer conversation and understanding --- you can elevate the melody or create something new.

Yet in some relationships people quit working at it early on, for fear that a few broken strings signify an end they'd rather not address. So instead of continuing to explore their skills, they strum those last two strings for all they are worth. Sometimes ... for a lifetime. Years spent playing the same set of familiar fights and frets... joylessly and with numbed fingers.

It is unfortunate, because greater investment would in time reveal the truth about those strings: You can replace them with new ones, created by your own depth of understanding. New strings which have a higher tensile strength! As you do this, you reveal certain truths: Patience does not sound the same as Resignation, nor does Complacency bear the same arrangement as Bored. Time spent playing together just means you'll have to keep improving those finer skills, that's all.

The song will change. Admittedly, it may not end the way it started.
You will forever be at risk of error.  (But ...you will also have a chance at rapture!)

So it is well worth the risk... for richer melodies remind us of what it meant to fall in love in the first place.The human spirit longs for exuberance through shared experiences. Despite our own broken strings, we are compelled to seek harmony through one another.

 -C.D.

About Good People in Love

New five part dramatic mini series from the executive Producer/Writer/Director of "Anyone But Me", Tina Cesa Ward.

Click to watch Part One & Part Two  

* (Adult Discretion Advised)

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